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States can now legally deny funding to #PlannedPerenthood

President Trump signed legislation that rolls back an Obama-era rule protecting certain federal funds for Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide legal abortions.

That regulation, implemented in the waning days of the Obama administration, required that states pass along family-planning grants — regardless of whether the groups they’re passing them along to offer abortion services as well. The rule was intended to prevent states from withholding these grants from any organization “for reasons other than its ability to provide Title X services.”

Now that the rule has been repealed, states can effectively block Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from funds associated with the Title X Family Planning program, which was established in 1970 to subsidize organizations that offer services related to contraception, pregnancy care, fertility and cancer screenings primarily for low-income people.

Anti-abortion activists cheered the move as a way to return some measure of discretion to states, which will now have the latitude they once did in deciding how to mete out Title X funds.